CaDNAP

If you think about DNA analysis for CSI (crime scene investigation) the involved humans (victim, suspect) certainly come first place. Their DNA profiles can be used to prove their presence at the crime scene and their relation to the crime. However, non-human and plant DNA can often provide a helpful link between crime scene and perpetrator or even between victim and perpetrator. Therefore institutes have formed the CaDNAP working group that has made it its mission to focus in particular on the non-human and plant DNA traces, as they are of equally important evidentiary value. They strive to improve, extend and harmonise methods for the analysis of molecular markers of plant and animal DNA in the forensic field.

History

The Institute of Legal Medicine Innsbruck, Medical University of Innsbruck (Institut für Gerichtliche Medizin Innsbruck) co-founded the Canine DNA Profiling (CaDNAP) group in 2003 in collaboration with the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt/BKA Wiesbaden). In 2008 the Institute of Veterinary Pathology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen (Institut für Veterinärpathologie) joined our group, in 2015 the Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich (Institut für Rechtsmedizin Zürich). In 2017 CaDNAP became a working group of the International Society for Forensic Genetics – ISFG.
Front row, from left to right:
U. Schleenbecker [BKA], A. Hellmann [BKA], N. V. Morf [IRM UZH], C. Berger [GMI], B. Berger [GMI]
Back row, from left to right:
W. Hecht [Giessen], J. Heinrich [GMI], U. Rohleder [BKA], W. Parson [GMI]

from left to right:
W. Parson [GMI], U. Schleenbecker [BKA], W. Hecht [Giessen], M. Unterländer [BKA], M. Schreiter [BKA],
N. V. Morf [IRM UZH], B. Berger [GMI], C. Berger [GMI],

Scope

In the beginnings, the group concentrated on a successful screening method to distinguish human from non-human DNA analysing the cytochrom b (cytb) gene using Sanger sequencing [Parson 2000] and the individualization of dogs using fragment length analysis of short tandem repeats (STR) [Eichmann 2004, Eichmann 2004, Eichmann 2005, Hellmann 2006, Berger 2014].
In order to strengthen the importance of animal and plant DNA analyses in the forensic field, recommendations for canine DNA identity testing [Budowle 2005] and for the use of non-human (animal) DNA in forensic genetic investigations [Linacre 2011] were published by the International Society for Forensic Genetics. Meanwhile, the group is engaged in the genetic analysis and individualization of a variety of animal species and plantsas well as the identification of unknown biological samples at crime scenes (see molecular markers). These pages present examples of animal and plant DNA analyses that have been established and validated within the CaDNAP group.